NJ immigrant families prepare to be split up under Trump

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program gave Mexican native Yaritza Ortega protection from deportation and a work permit while she pursued a medical assistant's certification in New Jersey.

It did nothing to help her parents.

As authorities step up enforcement on immigrants without legal status, Ortega faces the possibility that her parents, who lack legal status, could be deported, and she could become the guardian of her 2-year-old brother, a U.S. citizen.

"I am definitely aware that if it came to that point, I had become my little brother's caregiver or guardian, and definitely provide for him financially," said Ortega, 21, of Red Bank. "There are teenage moms who can do it. Why couldn't I do it for my mom and my brother?"

An estimated 154,000 immigrants without legal status in New Jersey have a child, and the majority of those children were born in the U.S., making them citizens. Many of these parents, now targeted for deportation, are setting up plans to ensure their children are accounted for should they be separated.

"People are most concerned with what's going to happen to their kids, even more than what's going to happen to them," said Rachel Prandini, a staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, based in California.

Immigrants setting up emergency plans aren't new. The Immigrant Legal Resource Center created a guide in 2017 for mixed-status families in the event that a parent is detained or deported.

Prandini says parents are encouraged to make a "child-care plan" to determine who is going to pick their children up from school if the parents are detained and who will care for their children if the parents remain in detention. And a bigger question: whether their children will stay in the U.S. or join their parents in the latter's home country.

Prandini said immigrant advocates in California are holding information sessions to help people fill out necessary forms, including the legal paperwork granting power of attorney to friends or relatives caring for their children.

Under the President Barack Obama's administration, immigration authorities targeted immigrants without legal status who had a criminal conviction, had alleged gang ties or posed a danger to national security.

President Donald Trump ushered in an age of heightened immigration enforcement, starting with an executive action making all immigrants without legal status targets for deportation.

Since then, mixed-status families in New Jersey have lived in limbo, lawyers say. At least 124,000 undocumented immigrants have a U.S. citizen child younger than 18, and an additional 30,000 have children who are not citizens, according to the Migration Policy Institute. Also, New Jersey has an estimated 17,400 DACA recipients, the majority of whose parents lack legal status.

"It was after Trump was elected. It (the power of attorney) became much more relevant and much more urgent," says Lloyd Munjack, an attorney for the American Friends Service Committee in New Jersey. "When Trump came in, they decided those distinctions were no longer going to be made and everyone was treated the same, and not in a good way."

Ortega's family of five includes two DACA recipients and a U.S. citizen child. She says her parents aren't opposed to taking the whole family back to Mexico with them if they are deported, but that they don't want their three children to lose out on opportunities in the U.S.

"She (my mom) has always told me, 'If you're not going to be successful in this country, you might as well go back to Mexico,'" Ortega said. "Now that she's here, why wouldn't she let us stay here where we could make our dreams come true?"

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Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

Members of Cuminidad Despierta! Awaken Community! gather at the Red Bank Train Station to support residents without legal immigration status. The crowd of hundreds then marched through downtown streets.
Red Bank, NJ
Friday, December 1, 2017
@dhoodhood
Doug Hood

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Ortega, for example, wanted to become a nurse, but learned she couldn't obtain the requisite license unless she was a citizen. She said she took an accelerated class on medical assisting instead and now works in a doctor's office.

In New Jersey, advocates have held emergency preparedness meetings for immigrant families to help them organize their legal paperwork and custodial plans. Families have filled out "custodial" power of attorney documents that let parents assign someone to a child should they get deported without losing custody.

A team of lawyers, led by Mandelbaum, drafted the custodial power of attorney document in spring 2017 after hearing immigrant families ask for ways to formalize their emergency preparedness plans. Mandelbaum told the Asbury Park Press in 2017 that the Department of Child Protection and Permanency said it would honor those custody forms.

Mandelbaum says there is no way to track how many families are using the power of attorney form, but she often gets calls about families seeking power of attorney documents.

Itzel Perez, an organizer for the advocacy group Awaken Community in Red Bank, says local immigrants are asking for help preparing for the possibility of having their families separated. Members worked with Munjack, the attorney, to organize a power of attorney clinic at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Red Bank.

"It falls upon kids like us who are aware of the information to spread it around to other people who aren't aware," Perez said, noting that some locals paid to get the document filled out when they could get that help from nonprofits free of charge.

Ortega's family filled out a "custodial" power of attorney form to assign Ortega as the primary caregiver should her parents leave the country. The document has to be renewed every six months.

Now a member of Awaken Community, Perez attended the local clinic to renew her form and guide other families on filling it out.

Munjack, the lawyer, says the separation of families can be traumatic for the children who get left behind, but the "power of attorney" form and other plans help make that transition smoother and ensure the children are in safe hands.

"All you're doing with power of attorney is protecting United States citizen or lawful permanent resident-children who are going to need to be taken care of," he said. "It's hard to object to that really. That's all power of attorney is."